Book Review: Backpacked: A Reluctant Trip Across Central America by Catherine Ryan Howard

As somebody who spends around 75% of his time daydreaming about being somewhere else travel books is a mixed blessing in that they give me new places to add to my destination wishlist but at the same time there's something a little masochistic in reading about fantastic places and crazy experiences, it's like watching Nigella …

Book Review: True Grit by Charles Portis

I picked up this book for a couple of quid and usually wouldn't have bothered as I've seen the movie version of it. By the movie version I mean the awesome 1969 John Wayne movie. But hearing that the Coen Brothers had done a remake I was curious to see if there was more to …

Favourite Books I’ve Read in 2012

I've read a fair few books this year, and here's my top 10, divided into two sections- Fiction and Non-Fiction. Fiction 1. World War Z by Max Brooks Hands down one of the best books I've ever read, with Brooks managing to convey a compelling and disturbingly real view of a the world attempting to …

Book Review: The Kindness of Strangers: Penniless Across America by Mike McIntyre

This book from 1994 is based on one central question, has kindness and helping others become a thing of the past? McIntyre sets out to see just how kind Americans are by hitchhiking coast-to-coast without any money at all. Transport, food and lodgings must all be provided by the people he meets or he'll have …

Book Review: Tough Sh*t: Life Advice from a Fat, Lazy Slob Who Did Good by Kevin Smith

Right off the bat I have to say I'm a huge Kevin Smith fan, I've enjoyed every movie of his I've seen (I'm yet to see the most recent two, Cop Out and Red State, but they're on my LoveFilm list) and he's kind of a hero of mine, so I was kind of target …

Book Review: A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin

So pretty much as soon as I finished A Game of Thrones (review here) I bought the Kindle version of this, the second installment of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire saga. It picks up shortly after the end of the first book with the Seven Kingdoms in turmoil. Following King Robert's …

Book Review: Dispatches by Michael Herr

Since my teens I've been fascinated by the Vietnam war, my friends and I would sit and watch 'Nam movies constantly and the whole war and its effect on the American cultural landscape and psyche is something that still interests me. I think a part of what attracted me to the conflict was that it …

Book Review: The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

I've only really got into Hemingway's stuff in the last couple of years, I read For Whom The Bell Tolls and was completely won over and went on to read a few of his short stories. I really dig his style of writing, which while being quite direct, almost simplistic at times has this sense …

Book Review: Mr Nice by Howard Marks

There's something oddly appealing about being a criminal, an outlaw, surviving on your wits and living on the fringes of society, its why despite having read lots of negative stuff about them and some of their actions I still find the idea of motorcycle gangs kind of cool. Hoard Marks' autobiography definitely makes the life …

Book Review: The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris

Its weird how your memory works, I've seen the movie version of this book a couple of times and usually that makes me nervous of reading the book, because you kind of know what's coming, but the thing is while I remember a lot of little bits from the film its mainly been reduced to …